1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a temperature controlling apparatus for batteries for cooling a power supplying device which is carried on a vehicle. Also, the present invention relates to a vehicle apparatus using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Ordinarily, driving force of electric energy for vehicles such as an Electric Vehicles (hereinafter called EVs) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (hereinafter called HEVs) can be obtained by generating a three-phase alternating current (hereinafter called 3-phase AC) by inverting the current sent from a high-voltage battery by an inverter so as to rotate a 3-phase AC motor. Also, in contrast, the vehicle uses the energy efficiently by storing the energy which is regenerated by regenerating operation of the 3-phase AC motor in the battery when the vehicle is decelerated.
However, such high-voltage batteries which are used in the EVs and the HEVs use a plurality of battery module which are connected. In the battery module, a plurality of nickel-hydrogen batteries are connected in series. Therefore, there is a problem in that battery temperatures differ, and because of this, current-charging function and current-discharging function decrease in the battery. In particular, in cold area, when a vehicle is used under low temperature conditions, temperature differences between a battery module which is disposed on a cabin floor of the vehicle and a battery module which is disposed on an opposite surface of the cabin floor tends to increase.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, conventionally, there has been proposed a temperature controlling apparatus for a battery which is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 9-92347. In this apparatus, a cooling fan is controlled according to temperature and heat is generated in a battery.
However, an object of a conventional temperature controlling apparatus for a battery was to cool the entire battery. Thus, a cooling fan was controlled by monitoring heat generated in the battery, although, it was not considered to control the temperature among a plurality of batteries uniformly.